If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

r300/500 rant

is anything new in store for us r300/r500 suckers that are stuck with the open source driver ? all i keep seeing of late on phoronix is news about r600, r700 and that evergreen crap.

i can't upgrade my card, it's a laptop. all of those other chips still have catalyst support afaik - mine is right about at the cut off mark of support drop, making it one of the most capable cards ati has decided to let go.

the open source driver is a nice effort but it's not a capable driver. outside of doing a little compositing and running glxgears, things are horrible. there are numerous applications - and i dont just mean through wine, im talking about linux native apps - that a quick google search will reveal run just fine using catalyst, nvidia or intel drivers. most 'bug reports' and complaints come from people like me who have to use the radeon drivers.

i dont think id be so worried if i kept seeing a steady stream of improvements to my incomplete driver; problem is all you guys seem to be on these days is providing support for cards that already have it, and while bringing superficially functional features like kms to the driver that can't even render sh*t to begin with.

It's possible you are not aware of the work being done on the Gallium3D driver for R3xx-R5xx. Most of the changes being made are the "hard but not particularly newsworthy" work that makes the difference between a science project and a real driver, so even if you aren't seeing constant updates in Phoronix there is a lot of work happening there :

Everything you see in that change log is specific to the r3xx-5xx range.

You need KMS (or, strictly speaking, the GEM/TTM memory manager that comes with KMS) in order to get support above GL 1.5 level, and you need to get above the GL 1.5 level in order to run most of the apps you are talking about.

If you aren't running KMS today then I strongly suggest you start; and once you are running KMS you can start testing the Gallium3D driver. I don't think the devs would say it's ready for general use yet, but at least you can see the progress and understand where the driver stack is going.

Comment

is anything new in store for us r300/r500 suckers that are stuck with the open source driver ? all i keep seeing of late on phoronix is news about r600, r700 and that evergreen crap.

i can't upgrade my card, it's a laptop. all of those other chips still have catalyst support afaik - mine is right about at the cut off mark of support drop, making it one of the most capable cards ati has decided to let go.

the open source driver is a nice effort but it's not a capable driver. outside of doing a little compositing and running glxgears, things are horrible. there are numerous applications - and i dont just mean through wine, im talking about linux native apps - that a quick google search will reveal run just fine using catalyst, nvidia or intel drivers. most 'bug reports' and complaints come from people like me who have to use the radeon drivers.

i dont think id be so worried if i kept seeing a steady stream of improvements to my incomplete driver; problem is all you guys seem to be on these days is providing support for cards that already have it, and while bringing superficially functional features like kms to the driver that can't even render sh*t to begin with.

so pls get you crap in order.

By the time they get their 'crap in order' your laptop will long be obsolete. Need a proper running performance driver in the mean time? All you will get is a 'we hear you, we understand but sucks to be you' reply back.

Comment

I you want fglrx support then buy a new laptop, you can't expect AMD to support old junk forever. Besides fglrx isn't really that good, in fact it's quite a horrible driver. So I don't really understand these comments of 'being stuck' with the oss driver. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side, or at least that's what people tend to think.

Comment

I you want fglrx support then buy a new laptop, you can't expect AMD to support old junk forever. Besides fglrx isn't really that good, in fact it's quite a horrible driver. So I don't really understand these comments of 'being stuck' with the oss driver. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side, or at least that's what people tend to think.